In our increasingly mobile society, communication devices increasingly make use of wireless channel technology for communication over many kinds of links. Wireless technology provides diverse benefits such as avoiding the cost, safety problems, and inconveniences of cables; and allowing the user of a communications device some degree mobility. For example, in cellular telephony, users are able to talk on the telephone in diverse areas that would have been inconvenient, or even impossible without using wireless link technology. With the advantage of wireless telephony, users are able to communicate not only while tethered to a wireline phone, but also while driving in cars, waiting in line at the supermarket, waiting for a bus, hiking, boating, etc. These advantages that have been experienced in cellular telephony are sought in many other service applications as well. For example, wireless links between computers allow users to transfer content from a first computing device to a second computing device. Wireless links allow cable-free bar-code wand scanning. Wireless links allow cable-free network access. Wireless links allow the cables to be eliminated between computers and printers. Wireless links may be employed to allow hands-free operation of either a wireline or a cellular telephone.
In general the problems of managing a wireless link are different than wireline communication. Wireline devices typically are powered by power cables. The disconnection of power for wireline devices may be a very rare event. In contrast, wireless devices often rely on battery power for some portion of their use. A wireless device may not be able to communicate while being charged. To save battery life, a mobile device may shut itself off, or it may be intentionally shut off by the user. During these shut-down periods, the other devices that are available for service may change since the device itself may be moved to a new location, or the other devices may have moved out of range, or powered off.
In an attempt to solve these different problems some vendors have implemented proprietary wireless protocols. Such proprietary solutions may become dominant and generally available, but usually there are several other vendors who issue their own proprietary protocols and so devices do not interoperate. In order to achieve ubiquity of interoperable wireless devices, several standards committees have been formed to establish specifications. Among these standards committees are IEEE 802.11, also called the WiFi standard, IEEE 802.16 also called Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks, and IEEE 802.20 also called Mobile Broadband Wireless access. Another standards committee, IEEE 802.15, also called Wireless Personal Area Networking, includes the Bluetooth standard. Many of these standards have achieved a great deal of ubiquity, so that it is common to have four or more compatible devices in the same area dedicated to diverse services. In a meeting of 8 people in a conference room, for example, there could easily be 8 personal computers and a printer using WiFi to communicate with a WiFi hotspot to gain access to a corporate network. In the same conference room there could also be 8 Bluetooth capable cell-phones that communicate over 3 different incompatible cellular carriers, and there could be two Bluetooth wireless microphones for the speakers. This single meeting contains 10 WiFi devices and 11 Bluetooth devices.
Those devices which make use of a wireless protocol for a service application gain an advantage when the same protocol is used for other diverse service applications. The greater the number of service applications, the greater the volume of production, and therefore the devices needed for the protocol become more readily available and less expensive. As ubiquity increases, however, the need to deal with other services in the same area becomes more important. There is a general need for wireless devices to perform methods of service connection in an efficient and user-friendly manner. There is also a general need for wireless devices to be constructed in such a manner as to support efficiency and ease of use.